Wale Emosu, who recently visited Spain, writes about his experience of the LaLiga and its global vision.
SPAIN is big on culture and tradition.
Down south in Seville, like other parts of the country, are historical places like the Real Alcazar, the Archivo de Indias and the Cathedral and the Giralda. These World Heritage sites, in addition to the Plaza de Espana, the Archaelogical Museum, Santa Cruz Quarter, the Torre del Oro and Museo de Ballas Artes, make the Andalusian capital a compelling destination for lovers of arts and crafts who find themselves in Spain.
The locals have not failed – jealously too – to preserve their heritage, if only for the sake of posterity.
In the mix are Real Betis Balompie, the football club that derived their name from the Guadalquivir river which runs through the city. ‘Betis’ is the name given to the river by Romans. The Verdiblancos conveniently pass for a heritage passed from one generation of a family to the other, hence the inscription on the stands of their home ground: “De padres a hijos, de abuelos a nietos, una passion llamada Betis”, meaning, “From parents to children, from grandparents to grandchildren, a passion called Betis.”
Julio Jimenez Heras, Real Betis Communications Director, told Tribunesport: “Betis is not just a football club; it’s part of the family, part of our tradition, our background. Our fathers were Betis fans, our grandfathers, my children are also Betis fans. So we are very proud of not just being a football club.” Unlike in some other climes where the so-called fans wait on handouts from their favourite club for a living, Real Betis fans see the club as theirs, which explains the 55 percent equity shares they have in the Verdiblancos. “The fans are our soul,” Heras added.
Few metres away from Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium, Sevilla FC home ground, is the most celebrated fan club of the Nervionenses, called Pena Sevillista El Relente. The club, under the supervision of a governing board, is peopled by passionate fans who engage, among others, in charity works, five-a-side competitions with the fans club of other clubs.
Every year, the club, founded on February 8, 1958, also honours an outstanding member for his contribution to the fan club or Sevilla FC. This year, according to the current president of the club, Gullermo Jimenez Ballester, coach of Sevilla FC, Joaquin Caparros will be decorated with the Gold badge.
The passion of the Real Betis and Sevilla fans supporting their clubs or interfacing across the clubs is legendary as they are not seen to be fanatical. Heras said: “Thank God we have no problems, we have a big city with two very strong teams [Real Betis and Sevilla] that are very passionate about football, but we have never had a big problem. We have never had casuality since 1915 when we started playing in the city. No problems, no security issue.”
These were just some of the many discoveries, during a recent visit to Spain, about Real Betis and Sevilla FC who have always locked Spain’s fourth largest city down in ‘El Gran Derbi’, regarded as one of the most iconic derbies in world football officially since 1915.
‘Football, LaLiga…is big business in Spain’
Before the trip to Seville from Madrid, Joris Evers, LaLiga’s head of communications, while addressing journalists from 14 countries in the Spanish capital, had said among other things: “Football, LaLiga and everything associated with it, is big business in Spain.” Against this background, this writer thus went down south to place reality side by side with rhetoric in order to know the more predominant.
But the structures on the ground speak volume of the high quality of either Betis or Sevilla, either of which qualify to be a model for the average LaLiga Santander club.
Benito Villamarin has been the home ground of Real Betis since 1936, but everything around the stadium belies the age of the fourth largest stadium in Spain after Barcelona’s Camp Nou, Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu and Atletico Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitano. Three hundred meters away from Benito Villamarin is the Luis del Sol Training Centre. Equipped with the latest sport technology, the Centre serves as the first team and all the academy teams’ training ground. For the record, Real Betis have 16 academy teams, four women’s team (one team featuring in LaLiga Iberdola) and one first division basketball team.
While the two natural lawn pitches, one artificial turf pitch and the 7-a-side artificial turf pitch at Luis del Sol Training Centre could be the dream home ground of many a professional football club elsewhere, these at best, serve as the home grounds of all the male Academy teams and the women’s first teams.
The TV sets and radio stations at Benito Villamarin and Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan, Sevilla FC’s home ground are impressive and are a delight, with their modern gadgets, for enterprising media professionals who have a mind of measuring up in a highly competitive field. Real Betis communications department with 29-member crew, according to Heras, is the biggest after Barcelona’s. He also talks about the transformation broadcast quality of LaLiga games has gone through in recent years.
“All around the world, we broadcast our LaLiga, so we have a stadium for TV, not only a good vision for the people who are watching the game. Everyone is watching at home, they see that, that is LaLiga, that’s Spain, we have a good pitch, we have a good image. And I am sure, maybe five years ago, we had a very good image of the Premiership in England, but not a very good image of the LaLiga, but now I think we have achieved that.”
Evers had explained earlier in Madrid the need for an improvement in that sector – to grow TV income – which has actually been on the upward swing domestically and internationally in recent years. The LaLiga communications chief remarkably noted a turnaround in fortune when they started selling TV rights of the LaLiga clubs collectively as opposed to the initial sale of the rights individually. And this, according to Evers, has been a good development for the smaller LaLiga clubs.
Under the old practice, Evers said, big clubs like Barcelona and Real Madrid could make 13 times the amount the smaller clubs were making. But with the new system, the gap has been narrowed down to just about three and a half times, which in the words of Evers, “is great for the level of competitiveness in the league.”
This is just one of the many improvements that have taken place in LaLiga, which could only boast 50-member workforce about five years ago, but which according to Ines Romera, LaLiga Communications Manager, Europe, Middle East and Africa, today has enlarged to 500. With an enlarged workforce, LaLiga too has increased in scope as reflected by the many departments at its headquarters in Madrid.
The features of the LaLiga today as highlighted by Joris Evers underline it as a strong global brand. While addressing journalists in Madrid, Evers denounced the claims by some people who say LaLiga is not as competitive as the (English) Premier League. “LaLiga is a competitive league. Five different teams have won LaLiga since 1992 and six teams have won the Premier League at the same time five teams have won LaLiga,” Evers said.
As the best football league in the world, he highlighted that 14 out of the last 15 major European trophies have been won by LaLiga clubs, while as a global league, LaLiga is broadcast in 183 countries through 89 broadcast media partners.
Last season alone, Evers averred that over 14 million fans attended stadiums to watch LaLiga matches and to underline its diversity, he added that 49 countries have presence in the league through the players that ply their trade in the elite Santander and LaLiga 1|2|3.
In the area of revenue generation, Evers pointed out that LaLiga is second to the English Premier League and this is as a result of England’s population strength.
“We are the second league when it comes to revenue. We would like to make the gap between the Premier League and LaLiga smaller, but one thing to remember is that there are twenty million more people in England than there are in Spain and the domestic market for broadcasting rights is the biggest market for them and for us also,” said Evers.
And perhaps the activity that best describes the LaLiga slogan – “It’s not football, it’s LaLiga” – is its collaboration with the other 63 federations in Spain to enhance their activities. Outside of Spain, LaLiga partners 11 sports in other countries.
Consideration of others well-being – that is the spirit of LaLiga.